by Alex Myers
‘Terrible creatures,’ said Lord Fendale, who was not nearly so learned. ‘Their breath is poisonous.’
‘As is their blood,’ said the Duke of Greenwold, even less learned than the other two. ‘It burns.’ He leaned towards the fire, holding his palms out, for the evening had turned chill.
‘Enough,’ said King Evan, who knew nothing of wyverns, but plenty about how a man can turn cowardly when darkness settles and stories start. He eyed the flames. ‘It is a foul beast and we will rid my kingdom of its filth. Our squires were young and untried. They were no match for the wiles of such a beast. Tomorrow we will show the serpent true knights.’ He glanced around at the men who circled the fire, his blue eyes settling on each in turn, just for a moment, before resting longer on Cador. Still mud-splattered from their chase of the buck, his blond hair tousled by the wind, the young knight seemed to have lost the softness of youth that he had when they set out from Winchester. The firelight picked out the hollows of his cheeks, the angles of his jaw.
At length, he lifted his eyes and met his king’s gaze. ‘Indeed we will, my liege.’
When morning dawned, Lord Fendale and the Duke of Greenwold agreed to search for the wyvern’s lair. Cador begged leave of the king, saying he wanted to offer prayers before the fight. King Evan granted him leave and told him not to ride too far. Cador donned a shirt of light mail over a jacket of boiled leather. He set his short spear in its holder, strapped his shield behind the saddle, and buckled his helm atop his head. This preparation was all the more difficult without a squire, but one cannot be too prepared when a wyvern is lurking. With his sword at his side and Sleek refreshed by a night’s rest in the glade, Cador looked a handsome knight. He rode at a gentle pace until he was some distance from the others and spurred the horse on. For it wasn’t prayer that Cador sought, but yesterday’s buck. All night he’d worried – not about the wyvern, but about the creature who might still be suffering because of his poor aim.
Who says knights are heartless and cruel? (I do. Usually.)
The knight rode through Gwenelleth’s dense tangle, following the trail of dried blood, furious with himself for causing such misery. At last, he came to a grove of oaks. Here, all the brush and briar of the forest disappeared and the ground was swept as clean as the king’s hall. The oaks – more than a dozen – rose in an almost-circle, their branches seeming to touch the sky. And there, in the middle of the grove, lay the buck.
Cador had spent his life hunting and fighting. He’d killed his first man – a thief who had climbed over a manor’s outer wall – at thirteen. He had trembled when the fight was over, but from fatigue, not guilt. It was just and right to kill when one’s person or property was threatened. And he didn’t remember killing his first deer or trapping his first rabbit. These deaths were of little consequence: they were food on the table, death to allow life. But this buck … it lay, panting, in the middle of the clearing. And though he knew he should avenge the death of the squires, who were mere innocents, he couldn’t rid himself of the guilt he felt at how much pain he had caused. To kill cleanly with good reason was right; to cause suffering was base and vile.
As he inched closer to the buck, he could see what a fine specimen it was – the spreading antlers bore eight points. The tawny sides, lighter than usual, were unblemished, with none of the scars and matted burrs that typically marred such animals’ coats. The only flaws: his three arrows. Two sprouted from the buck’s shoulder and one from the buck’s flank.
He dismounted and let the reins fall (his horse, Sleek, was well trained and would not budge). He stepped closer. By rights, he should have drawn his sword. The buck lay defeated, in misery. A quick thrust, there, where the leg joined the torso, into the heart, would end its suffering. Mercy for the beast. And he could ride off to seek vengeance for the squires.
And yet.
With a twinge of relief that no one was around, Cador sank to one knee, crossing his hands on the pommel of his sword, as if making obeisance. He could not say why, could only look at that massive buck, its night-black eyes staring into his, and whisper, ‘Sorry.’ The word was wrenched from him. ‘I’m sorry.’ Other words babbled in his mind – declarations that he’d wished he’d known, how he wouldn’t have shot those arrows if he had – half-nonsense that he knew to be true but didn’t understand. He reached out a hand. ‘I wish I could heal you, but I fear …’
‘Try the water of the spring.’
Cador scrambled to his feet. The voice had come from above. He loosened his sword in its sheath, swivelling his head around. ‘Who said that?’
‘I did. But hurry. The spring.’
There came a rustling of leaves high in one of the oaks. A motion caught his eye, a shifting of branches, while no breeze stirred the other trees. Cador half-drew his sword, spurred by fear and embarrassment (for whoever was in the tree had surely seen him kneel before an animal).
And yet.
The rustling ceased and he heard only the laboured breathing of the buck. A whuff from Sleek. The splashing of water. Unthinking, he dropped his sword into its sheath and ran towards the sound of the spring.
A rivulet of sparkling water plummeted from a rock shelf to land in a pebbly pool. At most springs – at least those near well-travelled paths – a wooden mug or horn cup would hang, suspended from a nearby branch, but there was none such here. Cador took off his helm, filled it to the brim, and carried it to the buck. He knelt and held the helm to the animal, but the buck rolled its eyes back and feebly turned its head away. Puzzled, Cador pushed the helm closer, but the buck refused to drink. So Cador dipped his fingers into it and flicked the water onto the buck’s head, as priests did with holy water.
‘It’ll take more than that, boy,’ the voice said. ‘This isn’t a christening.’
Cador looked around him, hoping for more advice, but none was forthcoming. He was alone; the trees were silent all around him. So, though it seemed undignified, he poured the water over the buck. Waited. Refilled the helm. Poured it again.
Three times in all did he empty his helm over the buck. After the third drenching, the buck raised its head, straining its neck and scrabbling with its hooves. Cador backed away. The buck flailed, found purchase, and stood on quivering legs. It shook itself, as a hound wet from the rain might shake itself, and the arrows fell loose. Where they had been, no scars or wounds remained. The buck gazed levelly at Cador, who felt a liquid squeeze of fear at the accusation there. Compelled, Cador bowed, and the buck dipped its antlers before running into the woods.
Silence, then:
‘Well done! For a moment, I thought you’d try to pour it down his throat. He wouldn’t have liked that. Haw!’
Cador spun about. There, on a low branch of an oak, sat an old man, his legs straddling the limb. His beard, matted and grey, had as much mistletoe tangled in it as the oak tree did. With a leap that belied his age, he vaulted to the ground and strode towards Cador. He had icy blue eyes that sparkled with what might have been amusement; his beard twitched, either with a smile or because some forest creature had taken up habitation within.
He was stark naked.
‘Well done, well done.’
Cador tried not to gape. Now that his interlocutor was revealed to be nothing but a dirty, naked old man, he felt disappointed. ‘Why didn’t you give the buck the water?’ he asked, wrinkling his nose; the old man smelled like a half-rotted carcass.
‘What an astute question from one so handsome.’ The old man offered a mocking bow. ‘That buck wouldn’t have let me come near enough to wet him with a single drop. Haw! He’s old King Keredic of Elmet. And it’s me that cast the curse to turn him into a buck. Haw! Haw!’ He laughed like a crow at the knight’s surprise.
Cador pulled himself up to his full height, so that he could look down on the old man. ‘I don’t understand your nonsense.’
‘I put a curse on King Keredic. I turned him into a buck. Follow me so far?’ His words were slow and mocking. His pale blu
e eyes glittered and glimmered; they seemed to reflect a light beyond what sun slanted into the clearing. ‘I was, let us say, intimate with his queen. I taught her the ways of wyrd, of glamours, of magic. And then that evil witch used that knowledge against me. Now I’m cursed too – made to live like the beasts of the forest, running about naked, eating only herbage. One day a year the curse lifts and I am able to speak and dress and move normally. It’s to give me a chance to apologize to the queen. But I usually just get a good meal at an inn. Grass is disgusting.’ He scratched his crotch. ‘Come to think of it, that day must be nearing. Even though I’m naked as a fish, I can at least talk to you. Haw!’
Cador’s confusion had only grown. An old man. A wizard. Who’d cursed a king and been cursed himself. Forced to live in the woods. It all seemed familiar to him. He recalled a story told to him as a child. A memory tinged with magic and legend tugged at his mind and stopped his sneering tone along with an instinct for caution. If – if! – this naked old man was actually a wizard, then Cador ought to be overly polite with him. And even if he wasn’t a wizard … well, it is knightly to be kind to the elderly and the … disadvantaged. ‘Is there anything I can do to help you, Sir Wizard?’ he offered in a measured voice.
‘Aren’t you the gallant fool? No. None but a maiden can break the curse. Or the queen, I suppose, and she’s no maiden. Not many maidens come traipsing through the forest of Gwenelleth.’ He sighed. ‘Besides. You’ve helped me enough by bringing that bastard buck back to life. No fun if he escapes my curse by dying.’
And here Cador had intended to help the buck, to put it out of its misery. How had it all gone so strange and wrong? He scratched his nose, trying to recall legends he’d heard of a man in the woods. But all he could summon was a general sense that it was best not to cross paths with wizards and, if you were unfortunate enough to do so, to tread carefully. So he gave the man a nod, as one would offer to an equal, and said, ‘I am glad to have been of service to you.’
‘Haw! Now you’re sounding smarter. You’ve been of service, eh? So I owe you a favour. Well, I always pay my debts. How about twice the return? Twofold. Sound fair to you?’ The old man winked, and his eyes sparkled some more – glittered, even, as if they were silver, not blue.
Cador gave a slow nod, trying to puzzle out what the trick might be. Everyone knows how wishes work.
‘I’ll give you aid once when you request it. And once, I’ll give you aid when you do not. Do we have a deal?’ The old man quirked an eyebrow and Cador stared at him, seeming to see past the matted hair and the mud-streaked face for the first time, past all that to the blue of his eyes, sharp and clear as ice, with none of the fogginess and clouding that age often brings. He seemed to see himself reflected back in those eyes; himself, but more perfect. As young, as handsome, but more: beautiful, too. Strong and well shaped and … impossible. So much magic. Who could …
Cador shook his head to clear it. ‘Are you … are you Merlin?’
‘Very handsome. Not so bright. That took you an awfully long time.’ He held out a hand; his fingers ended with long yellow nails thick and curled as a crow’s talons. ‘Do we have a deal?’
‘Help now and help later.’
‘Yes, a good deal.’ Merlin wiggled his fingers.
Cador considered. ‘Can you tell my future?’
Merlin let his shoulders slump. The light in his eyes dimmed. ‘I could. But that is a terrible idea. Every fool wants to know their future and then, once they know it, they go on and try to change it. Well! Do you want to know? Or do you just want what you want?’
Cador scratched his nose once more. ‘I suppose I want what I want.’
‘Haw! Honest! And what do you want?’
‘Well, for myself, glory on the battlefield. A beautiful wife. Land – for, being a younger son, I have only a small holding of my own. And children.’ He paused. ‘But a true knight shouldn’t ask for himself. He should think of his king …’ Cador thought of King Evan for a moment. On second thoughts, King Evan did seem fine … ‘Or at least of other people. So, perhaps I could ask you to help my children. That’s my bargain – your aid, as you’ve offered, on two occasions, now and later, and that you will also be of help to my offspring.’ Cador finished with a flourish, proud of himself for thinking so thoroughly.
Merlin scratched at his stomach. ‘Mmmm. You want a lot. But you ask so nicely. Your offspring, eh? Help them?’ Skrtch, skrtch, he ran his long nails across his flesh. ‘Very well. On my honour as a wizard. I will do so. And enjoy it very much.’
Cador reached out and gripped Merlin’s hand. The wizard’s fingers clamped around his own, so tightly Cador could not pull away. Merlin stared into Cador’s eyes and once again, the young knight saw his reflection there, or, rather, his non-reflection. He could move neither his hand nor his gaze, but was utterly transfixed. His mind swirled in a flux of colours, and he felt himself grow dizzy, as if he was falling.
‘I can tell,’ the enchanter said, his voice clearer now, not the grating of a crow, but the mellow richness of a powerful man, ‘that you do want to know your future. You want a true prophecy of Merlin. So you shall have what you want: you will have One who will be Two. Your hand will cleave them and my hand will join them.’ Merlin released his grip, his voice returned to its disarming scratchiness and its hacking laugh. ‘Go on now. Haw! Isn’t there a dragon you ought to be battling?’
‘It’s a wyvern,’ Cador said, taking a staggering step, then steadying himself against an oak’s trunk.
‘Only an idiot would mistake a dragon for a wyvern. You need only to study its scales; if you see silver interlapped with green, it is a dragon. Only a fool would think otherwise. You had better get moving, young man.’
Reminded of his duty and suddenly aware of how long away he’d been from his king, Cador scarcely paused to say ‘thank you’ before vaulting onto his mount and sinking his spurs into Sleek’s sides. Off the horse leapt, back towards King Evan, back towards the wyvern or dragon or what-have-you. Away from the grove and the wizard.
It was only when the grove had disappeared that the strangeness of it all settled over him. He’d never heard of King Keredic. Or a place called Elmet. Had the old man played a trick on him?
He’d heard it said, never trust any wizard. And now that he was clear of the grove, the stories he’d heard about the old enchanter swam through his mind. King Evan was, after all, Arthur’s descendent, and bards loved to visit Winchester and tell tales of the Round Table or the story of how Merlin, racked with guilt over Arthur’s death, lost his mind, fled from court, and seduced a young woman, who imprisoned him in a tower. Or something like that. Cador was missing a few details. Truth be told, he felt a bit dizzy and now, in addition to worry about the dragon and his king, he worried that he oughtn’t to have tried to bargain with a wizard.
So addled was poor Cador by his time in the clearing that he lost the trail he’d been following and was forced to turn back, looking in vain for any mark of blood or sign of his earlier passage. But it was as if the forest had sprouted new, unbroken twigs, and let fall new, unblemished leaves. He drew Sleek to a halt and considered sounding his horn or crying out for help. In undergrowth this thick, the king’s camp could be twenty feet away and he wouldn’t know it. But to summon help because he was lost? Disgraceful. He’d never hear the end of it. He nudged Sleek to a walk and gave the horse his head, leaning forward to rub the creature’s ears – this horse could always find the way home. He settled into thoughts of Merlin.
And that was how he rode for over an hour, the sun now far past its zenith, and so he would have continued to ride had the scent not arrested him (more accurately, it arrested his horse, but I’ll give Cador some credit. As soon as the horse stopped, Cador noticed the scent). The scent. It reminded him of the rotting disease that once overtook the flocks that grazed near Winchester. The peasants had been forced to throw the many half-decayed sheep onto a massive pyre. There was that self-same acrid smell now, the
stinging of burnt hair, and also the smell of utter putrescence (I doubt he knew that word, but I trust you, listener, to appreciate my use of it). He held a scented kerchief to his nose – for no knight as winsome as Cador is ever without a scented kerchief – and listened.
Quiet. A snapping sound, like that of a clumsy man making his way through the woods – but magnified. Snap. Snap. He squeezed Sleek’s sides with his knees, urging the horse forward. Ahead, the forest thinned and Cador rode to the last row of trees, their trunks wreathed with ropes of mistletoe. Below, a bowl-like depression opened, its sides and bottom charred soil, devoid of vegetative growth beyond a few stumps that were blackened with soot or rot. Opposite his position, halfway up the far side of the valley, a dark hole gaped. The opening was surrounded by a tumble of grey stones coated with lichen the colour of verdigris and a smattering of white sticks, sun-bleached dead wood.
Again, the snapping sound bounced across the empty space, and something white shot out of the hole before tumbling to rest by the pile of … not sticks. Not dead wood. But bones. A large pile of bones.
May the Good Lord have mercy.
The dragon’s lair. Cador breathed slowly. If he was very, very careful, he could walk around this lair and proceed to put a safe distance between himself and this dragon. Not that he was fleeing, no, a knight would never flee. He simply needed to return quickly to the king to give him this valuable information about the dragon’s location. He pushed back his fair hair and settled his helm; the metal squeezed against his temples, a reassuring pressure. Then he pulled on his gauntlets and with some difficulty (curse the dragon for taking their squires!) he strapped his shield to his arm, wishing he was wearing full plates of armour and not just this leather and mail, which now seemed rather piddling.
Sleek sensed his fear and stepped lightly, not breaking the slightest twig. Below, snap, snap, another bone shot out. Don’t look, he told himself. But he couldn’t help it. He let his shield drop a few inches and squinted through the visor of his helm. From amid the pile of rocks, a green snout appeared, blunt and ugly as a snake’s head. Massive. The head alone was as big as Cador’s torso. From this distance, only the length of a village green, he could see two nostrils, flat and sinister, and, worse, the mouth below, where now a tongue – grey but streaked red with blood and forked – darted out. It occurred to Cador with a panicked lurch that perhaps the dragon could smell him … and know he was there. Not a pleasant thought. He raised his shield once more, his other hand resting on the pommel of his sword, and squeezed Sleek’s sides with his knees.